quotations about desire
Men quickly find a theory that adapts itself to their desires.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Thoughts
It is the thing that is most remote from the world in which we ourselves live that attracts us most. We are under the spell of what is distant from us. It is not our nature to desire passionately what is near at hand.
ALEC WAUGH
On Doing What One Likes
Plant the seed of desire in your mind and it forms a nucleus with power to attract to itself everything needed for its fulfillment.
ROBERT J. COLLIER
attributed, Wisdom for the Soul
If you want a thing--truly want it, want it so badly that you need it as you need air to breathe, then unless you die, you will have it. Why not? It has you. There is no escape. What a cruel and terrible thing escape would be if escape were possible.
OCTAVIA E. BUTLER
Parable of the Talents
Obsession is so extreme and so hard to imagine with the rational mind that it has a science-fiction-like quality to it--it's almost as if the obsessed one has been taken over by a replica, a pod, a facsimile of the rational person. When one is in the grip of an obsession, everything else--children, regular meals, sleep, work--is swept away. The entire being is one yearning, frothing bath of desire. It's the dirty trick of obsession that getting its way--spending time with the object of desire, having sex with the object of desire--doesn't lessen the obsession, but increases it. Although an addict, while obsessed, truly believes that being with the object of the obsession will cure the obsession, the opposite is true. When an alcoholic promises that all he needs is one last bender to achieve satisfaction, he's chasing a chimera.
SUSAN CHEEVER
Desire: Where Sex Meets Addiction
It is only by frequent deaths of ourselves and our self-centered desires that we can come to live more fully.
MOTHER TERESA
A Gift for God
The man of desire needs the promise of reward to urge him to action. He is as a child working for the possession of a toy.
JAMES ALLEN
Byways of Blessedness
As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Overruled
Not wingless is Desire, as feigned by some:
For, though he mostly pace this nether earth
Seasons there are when he can lift to heaven.
RICHARD GARNETT
De Flagello Myrtes
How long can you suppress your own desires? Until you understand that in doing so will destroy yourself.
IVAN KLIMA
Waiting for the Dark
Yeah
Lover I'm off the streets
Gonna go where the bright lights
And the big city meet
With a red guitar, on fire
Desire
U2
"Desire", Rattle and Hum
God has given you these desires ... He gives us carnal love for a purpose, for mutual delight, to produce children, and the sanctification of the soul. Cast yourself headlong on God's love, begging His grace to help you in the perfection of the nature He gave you. To love another so deeply that we seek union with the beloved, by that to bring an immortal soul into this world and care for and shape it ... that is to imitate God Himself in His splendor!
S. M. STIRLING
The Sunrise Lands
Desire rules over men, those half-gods vain,
And is the tyrant of their heart and brain.
FERNAND GREGH
"Desire"
We are ruined, not by what we really want, but by what we think we do.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
The more unharmonious and inconsistent your objects of desire, the more inconsequent, inconstant, unquiet, the more ignoble, idiotical, and criminal yourself.
JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER
Aphorisms on Man
When the desire is too much to bear, we often bury it beneath frenzied thoughts and activities or escape it by dulling our immediate consciousness of living. It is possible to run away from the desire for years, even decades, at a time, but we cannot eradicate it entirely. It keeps touching us in little glimpses and hints in our dreams, our hopes, our unguarded moments.
GERALD G. MAY
The Awakened Heart
Large natures have usually large desires, and only the small are satisfied with the small.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
It would be helpful if the universe would give us one big clue, or a giant compass, if you will, pointing to the direction we should be taking. In fact, the compass is there. To find it, you need only look inside yourself to discover your soul's purest desire, its dream for your life.
DEEPAK CHOPRA
The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire
The best joke of all is to give someone just what they've wanted.
TONY BALLANTYNE
Recursion
Natural desires are within bounds; but unnatural lust is infinite.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms